Ben & Jerry's withdraws sales from Israeli settlements but clashes with parent company Unilever

SectionsTVFeaturedMore from NBC Follow NBC News The board of Ben & Jerry's has clashed with its parent company, Unilever, over the handling of the withdrawal of its products from Israeli settlements.Ben & Jerry's released a statement Monday announcing that it would stop selling its ice cream in the occupied territories."We believe it is inconsistent with our values for Ben & Jerry's ice cream to be sold in the Occupied Palestinian Territory," the statement said.Withdrawing the product requires the ending of a license agreement with a local franchisee who has distributed Ben & Jerry's in Israel since 1987. The group argues that the sale of Ben & Jerry's products in the occupied territories is at odds with the company's stated progressive values and social mission to "eliminate injustices in our local, national and international communities by integrating these concerns in our day-to-day business activities.""By doing business in Israel and in illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory it violates its own social mission and engages in unethical practices," the organization says on its website.Mittal said that the board passed a resolution to end sales of Ben & Jerry's products in Israeli settlements last July but that the company's CEO, Matthew McCarthy, whom Unilever appointed in 2018, "never operationalized it."NBC News has not independently reviewed the resolution.The international nonprofit organization Human Rights Watch has said for years that companies that operate in the settlements are complicit in human rights abuses."Our recommendation for businesses is to evaluate their operations and to understand the ways they can be benefiting from and contributing to human rights abuses in settlements," said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director of Human Rights Watch.Pressure on Ben & Jerry's intensified in May as violence escalated between Israel and Hamas, the militant group that governs the Gaza Strip.